


in you i see a mirror no more

by chaWOOPa



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Autism, Autistic Taako, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 03:16:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaWOOPa/pseuds/chaWOOPa
Summary: Lup smiles at him from where she stands in her new body-no, construct, granted to her via the power of the Raven Queen. It can look however Lup wants and Lup had chosen to look exactly how she had in life, exactly how she thinks Taako still looks.Taako can see the goddess lurking behind her eyes and he suppresses a shiver.It has been a week since the day of story and song and Taako has spent that week in Glamour Springs rebuilding everything he can, simultaneously running from his past and embracing it. He is hated here, even though he saved the multiverse. He is not wanted for arrest and trial anymore, but his help rebuilding is treated like it is community service for a crime by the community and he is glad of it. The whole rest of the universe thinks he is a hero now.Taako doesn’t feel like a hero.





	in you i see a mirror no more

Taako looks at Lup, a near mirror to him no more, not after what he has been through, and he feels something inside him break. Part of him regards it with a clinical kind of morbid curiosity. 

 

He hadn’t known there was anything left of him to break. 

 

Lup smiles at him from where she stands in her new body-no, construct, granted to her via the power of the Raven Queen. It can look however Lup wants and Lup had chosen to look exactly how she had in life, exactly how she thinks Taako still looks. 

 

Taako can see the goddess lurking behind her eyes and he suppresses a shiver. 

 

It has been a week since the day of story and song and Taako has spent that week in Glamour Springs rebuilding everything he can, simultaneously running from his past and embracing it. He is hated here, even though he saved the multiverse. He is not wanted for arrest and trial anymore, but his help rebuilding is treated like it is community service for a crime by the community and he is glad of it. The whole rest of the universe thinks he is a hero now.

 

Taako doesn’t feel like a hero.

 

Taako feels like a shell of his former self; like a murderer; like a fake; like a joke; Taako feels like a synthetic being with half a soul shoved inside and told to pretend to be something bigger than he could ever dream of measuring up to. 

 

He can only fake it so far before he falls apart. 

 

Taako had made it a week. He had hidden for a week among people who hated him and saw him as what he really was before he had been located. It was longer than he had thought he would have, really. He was lucky it had taken them this long to find him. He supposed it was because of those of them that knew about what happened in glamor springs; none of them would ever think to look there. 

 

He felt a flash of pride at the thought that his little detective hadn’t ratted him out. 

 

He sees Lup open her mouth to speak and he shuts down again. He is all clinical analysis of the woman in front of him and the trauma lurking behind the goddess behind her eyes. She may carry herself like a stranger now, but no amount of celestial magic will ever change that this is his sister standing in front of him. He grew up with her, he has been with her for over two-hundred years. Taako knows her better than he knows himself, and even with the shadow of a goddess she still has the mind and body of Lup. 

 

Taako  _ knows  _ the mind and body of Lup. 

 

“Hey Taako,” Lup says gently. Cautious, she is being careful with him, like he is something breakable, something wounded and skittish. 

 

Taako supposes he is, for all intents and purposes, something wounded. She doesn’t need to know that though. After all, she has her own trauma to work with. “Hey Lup,” Taako tries for light and lands somewhere in hushed and he curses himself for the last week spent in silent reflection. 

 

Minus the occasional panic attack, of course.

 

“What’s goin’ on brobro?” she asks. Casual; counterfeit composure covering concern that churns just below the surface of her skin. Taako can see it clear as glass, simmering beneath the outer layer from the tips her fingers where they rest by her side to the tops of her ears where they rest by her head. She has always had better control over her ears than Taako has. He wonders vaguely how she does it. 

 

“I’m helping this town rebuild after-” his words could be as casual as hers if only they didn’t catch in his throat halfway up.  _ After what?  _ His brain asks him, and he doesn’t know the answer so he throws a handwave in the air and hopes that Lup does “-you know… everything.”

 

Lup studies him for a moment before taking a small step towards him. 

 

Taako steps back. 

 

The hurt that flashes in her eyes only lasts a second but Taako doesn’t miss it. He doesn’t miss the way she goes from open with her arms down at her side and her body tilted towards him to closed with her arms crossed over her chest as she reels away from the barbs he sent her way. He never meant to send anything her way. 

 

“Lup, I-” 

 

“No,” she takes a deep breath and lowers her arms back down again and suddenly Taako can see all the marks of their journey in her eyes and that something that broke just moments ago shatters as he makes the easiest decision in his life. 

 

She has always been the better of the two of them. 

 

“I am sorry, Taako,” she says, and she is crying, she is hurting, yet she is the one apologizing to him. Taako can’t make sense of the situation because nothing matches up to the way people are supposed to act. “When I came after you I wasn’t thinking about what you wanted or what you went through, all I was thinking about was myself. It was selfish, and I am sorry. You deserve time to heal, Taako, and you can have that.”

 

_ This is wrong _ , Taako thinks as he tracks her tears as they roll down her face. He opens his mouth to say so but nothing comes out so instead he tries to walk towards her to hug her. 

 

His legs don’t move either. 

 

He looks down at them and he can’t even manage to look confused. He thinks vaguely that he might be having a shutdown. 

 

Lup is looking at him again and he opens his mouth to speak but his voice refuses to work with him, so instead he moves his hands. He signs, “ _ It’s okay. I’m sorry. _ ” 

 

He thinks he must have said something wrong because her face changes again and she isn’t crying anymore but she isn’t happy either. Aren’t people supposed to be happy after you apologize?  _ You weren’t happy when Lucretia apologized _ , something in his brain says and it sounds so much like Lup that Taako nearly brings his hands up to his ears to block her out before realizing that she didn’t speak. She is frozen in front of him as he wrestles with himself and tries to understand what emotion she is feeling. He should  _ know _ was emotion she is feeling. 

 

Taako doesn’t know why he can’t read her face anymore only that he can’t do it and that it scares him. It scares him to be so distant from his sister, from his twin, but he doesn’t want to get close again. 

 

“T-taako?” she says. 

 

Concern; hesitant and scared and uttered on the tail end of a thought that Taako can’t predict anymore because there is something broken between the two of them. There is something shattered. It waves in the wind like a snapped thread and it taunts Taako with its mere presence. 

 

_ Look _ , it cries,  _ you were two, once!  _

 

Taako is looking at his sister, at Lup, but all he sees is a puzzle piece that no longer quite fits against his own and he isn’t aware of the tears on his own face but they are there as he watches their snapped bond dance in the wind coming off of his changed heart and he wonders why Lup can’t see it too. He knows that she can’t see it too. If she could see it, she would be long gone. 

 

Taako today isn’t worth this much effort.

 

“ _ Can I hug you? _ ” she signs. 

 

There is nothing for Taako to analyse this time. No tone of voice, noe face movements, no twitches or accents or anything for Taako to latch on to this time as he watches her steady hands form the word ‘hug’ and something inside him screams for him to run.  _ Run and you won’t get hurt _ , it calls, but his feet are listening to someone else right now. 

 

A warm, small hand slips into his own and he blinks and looks down at the owner to see Angus. He takes a deep, shuddering breath and his free hand reaches up to wipe at tears he only just now realizes are falling. “Are you okay, Sir?” Angus says. Genuine; Steady and warm and there is something about this little boy that grounds Taako. 

 

Lup used to do that. 

 

Taako shakes his head and falls to his knees by Angus. He doesn’t know who is moving his body for him, but he is thankful to them for letting him cling to his boy. He missed his precious magic boy. 

 

“Is it okay for Miss Lup to come over here?” Angus asks. 

 

Careful; cautious with his words and with his tone while he clings desperately to Taako as though Taako won’t notice the way his hands ball into fists in his shirt and beg Taako not to leave him alone again. 

 

Taako stomach twists into knots that he cannot decypher and ne nods into Angus’s chest. He doesn’t much care what Lup does now. THere is someone here who will not leave him. There is someone here  _ he will not leave again _ . 

 

Lup’s footsteps sound like stomps and Taako flinches with each one until they stop just next to him. “Can she hug us?” Angus asks. 

 

Gentle; cautious; Angus is too old to be ten, too wise, too world-weary. Taako nods again because he needs his sister. He needs his sister to hold onto him when the rest of his world has crumbled away into ash. 

 

He needs to feel that she has not crumbled away with it this time. 

 

Lup wraps her arms around the two of them and Taako relaxes, finally. He can feel all the curves and edges where he used to fit perfectly and he cannot find a way to settle back into them like he used to. He has too many edges of his own, he has more bumps, more baggage and scars and he hasn’t eaten enough to fit into her healthy body since before she passed through his hands like water, but that is okay. 

 

She feels like home, with Angus here in his arms as they kneel on the very ground where he killed forty people. Taako can feel the home he used to have in her arms and he lets himself relax there whether he fits it or not. 

 

He will fit there one day, He will find a way to fit there again, one day, but for now, this will have to do. 

**Author's Note:**

> hey so im a slut for hypoempathetic taako and also taako who goes non-verbal and has shutdowns while lup does the opposite and ummmmmmmmm if u wanna talk about any of that im lupcult.tumblr.com


End file.
